Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Coach Gordon Nehls is the narrator and protagonist of Fourth
Down in Texas, but Eric “Mosey” Posey is the heart of the novel. He’s also the
character I enjoyed writing the most, partly because he’s inspired by a former
high school football player that I covered as a reporter for The Dallas Morning
News (more on that in a minute).

Coach Nehls describes Mosey -- a nickname shortened to “Mose” by those who
know him best – as a once-in-a-generation
player. Mose was a kid who could launch a thousand coaching headaches, but he could also do
it with a smile and a charm, and his immense competitiveness and
ability made him a high school star.

That comes across when Coach Nehls talks about the
final touchdown Mose scored in high school:

One thing that has
stuck with me from Mose’s last touchdown is the sound. Players and coaches
around me were cheering, of course, but I could still hear the cracking and
creaking of pads as the defenders changed direction and gave chase. They wore
their pads like a set of armadillo plates and Mose wore his like a track suit.
Maybe it was all the noise of the game —and if you’ve never been on the
sidelines, football is a very loud game—but I couldn’t hear Mose running. I
couldn’t hear his pads rubbing, or his cleats digging, or his body straining as
he rounded the corner in front of me. He skated by, turned his head to the
right, saw one defender to beat, and shifted gears.

The diving
defender didn’t get within a foot of Mose, who was all alone by the twenty-yard
line. He high-stepped the last ten yards, crossed the goal line, spun the ball
like a top, and turned toward our stands. He was posing for the crowd, arms
folded across his chest, nodding and show­boating, when penalty flags flew like
roses from adoring fans.

Mose was a legend as a high school
football player, and now as a young man, he’s a mentor to Creekside’s rising star,
sophomore quarterback Tyreke Abrams. Mose is an unofficial assistant coach,
but he has a lot to offer the team and Coach Nehls.

He’s like a third son to Nehls, although the Coach sees the entire team as his family. Mose is an
inspiration to the players and the entire community,
who he dazzles with an impromptu speech about what football means to him during a dramatic scene in the book.

Mose is the player who can draw the emotions
out of Coach Nehls, and it’s their conversations – about cornerbacks, about football,
about music, about life – that show the incredible potential in a relationship
between a player and coach. Coach Nehls and Mose have changed each other’s
lives, and they both know it.

Writers sometimes talk about how, after
creating a character, it’s difficult to believe that the character isn’t
real. That's because of the time and effort you pour into creating a character, considering his or her thoughts and feelings, and trying to view the story from his or her perspective. But the character of Mose might feel even more real because, as I
mentioned above, he is inspired by an actual person.

During my time at The Dallas Morning News, I got to know Corey Borner, who played for his beloved DeSoto Eagles until suffering an injury.
Borner is a very inspiring guy who I wrote several stories about – here’s
one of them – and we’ve stayed in touch over the years.

No, Corey is not
Mosey. But Borner’s spirit, and spirituality, are definitely in Mosey. I’ve
told Corey that.